Darkness on the Edge of Town
by IndyStarkDeanJr
Summary: "He was nothing else than an anguished and unnamed tramp, stumbling from one day to another" (Springsteen)


**Darkness on the Edge of Town**

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 _Hi everyone,_

 _The sentence in italic was the first that came to my mind and then I saw all of this ..._

 _It's a very sad scene, which I'm very closed to._

 _The title is a song by B. Springsteen._

 _I do not own the serie or the characters._

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 **Darkness on the Edge of Town**

The man stood in the early twilight, one tall and scraggy silhouette being rocked by the sharp assaults of the chill wind. In the distance, an invisible raven croaked. He would have laughed at the lugubrious atmosphere if his heart and soul weren't so clenched with grief. Above his bowed head, red, purple and orange clouds were all over the immense sky. The horizon was in fire. With shaking hands, he brought the collar of his worn coat higher around his neck. He wore a simple shirt underneath, nothing sufficient against the changing weather. A pair of faded jeans completed his clothing. He was cold inside, perhaps his own bones were now made of breakable ice. For months, he has been on the road. He was nothing else than an anguished and unnamed tramp, stumbling from one day to another without any hope of a brighter future. He has no identity. He was no one. To the world, Gregory House was dead. And there he stood.

 _The wind was blowing through the graves, whispering the words of the dead._ The cold night was falling upon the cemetery and plunging the field into darkness. Nothing seemed to matter to him now. A sudden gust of wind waved the shadows, giving him the impression that the ghosts of his tormented past came dancing among the sepulchres. The given name of his late friend was written in golden letters on the grey stone. White roses, cyclamens, spindles and pansies, bunches of all sorts gathered around the tomb – brought to remember a son, a friend, a loved one.

Together, they have crossed the country on motorcycles, living on the road for a few months from more or less shabby motels to bigger cities. They've rode as far as possible without looking behind them, running away from the East Coast, purchasing the sun as it declined under the line of the horizon. At some point however, struggling against the privation of Vicodin, the elder's condition worsened and a week was needed till the more severe symptoms of withdrawal started to fade away. He's hated that period, he hadn't been supposed to be weak, to be the center of attention. Quite soon after that, they were on the road again, aiming for California. All was more uncertain and frail. They never reached it.

A failing health has obliged them to fly back to Louisiana, where they have met for the first time, where their nearly thirty-year friendship has started and where they'd hoped to celebrate the good old days one last time. After that, it has become less and less possible to deny the inevitable. Now, in the crepuscular, House had the sensation of being nothing else than a malfunctioning body. At least, his heart was beating where his friend's had long stopped. A silence tear rolled down his bearded cheek and moulded the sculpted curves of his thin lips.

He's done the impossible to offer this last trip to his friend, although he too deserved some rest now. He could have cut his vein, shoot himself to end his misery, pain and loneliness. In his own special way, he has always been a man of his words. But House has made a promise of life to his dead friend. A promise to go on, to continue. Who would judge, who was here to mourn over his death. Not that little girl he remembered but wouldn't recognize now. Not her mother who he has loved for all those years and would love for the rest of his life. He has done too much harm, hurt them too many times in the past.

He was on a road without a destination or hope to find again what he has once lost.

He would come again tomorrow.

He was a passing shadow in the mighty wind.

It was a starless night and it perfectly completed the darkness in which his life has fallen.


End file.
